All of the posturing and jostling for positions and times is coming to an end. The second season is in full swing for girls swim and sectionals are this week. Prelims around the state begin Thursday night and state dreams begin at 1 p.m. Saturday in sectional finals. The sectional champions as well as anyone that meets state standards in 11 events (plus a few random swimmers that are ‘close enough’ to fill lanes at the finals), will head to IUPUI Feb. 12 for the IHSAA State Finals.

Sectional swim prelims begin at 5:30 p.m. Thursday with diving prelims opening Saturday morning at 9 a.m. Swim and dive championships start at 1 p.m. Saturday.

At Concord

Northridge showed at the Northern Lakes Conference it wasn’t messing around, setting three meet records and winning 10 events. The only two non-Northridge wins went to Warsaw’s Brenna Morgan, who is swimming at her own sectional. All targets will be on the Raiders.

Northridge predictably holds eight of the top swim seeds coming in, with the duo of Katie Hughes (200 and 500) and Sydnee Emerson (IM and breaststroke) the ones to watch. Hughes and Wawasee’s Paige Miller will renew their friendly rivalry in both events, as Miller is the two-seed in both and the only swimmer within earshot of Hughes’ times.

Lauren Miller of Ridge is tops heading into the backstroke, and Northridge has the top relay in the medley, 200 and 400.

Concord’s Maddison Lantz (50) and MaKayla Miller (100) bring in the best times in the respective events and Elkhart Central’s Sydney Dygert opens up Thursday in the middle lane in the butterfly.

Wawasee has the two-seed in the 400 free relay and three-seed in the 200 free relay and the Lady Warriors have Kayla Hershberger lurking in the 100 free and backstroke, Shelby Adams in the breaststroke and Mikala Mawhorter in the 50.

“The same attitude we had at conference is the same we will have at sectional,” said Wawasee head coach Julie Robinson. “We are focused on us and what we can do, not what Northridge or Concord is doing. It’s a very young group so it will be interesting to see how they taper. Conference was huge for us in confidence, so I’m excited to see how they respond.”

Diving should be very interesting Saturday morning at Concord as Northridge’s trio of Sara Troyer, Mary Grossman and Rylee Dahlman along with Concord’s Lauren Boone all broke the NLC record in January and all will return to battle for diving regional spots. Wawasee’s Hannah Rhoades was fifth at the NLC, but was almost 140 points behind fourth place.

At Warsaw

The Tigers are seeded very well heading into its own sectional. Warsaw is the top seed in nine of the 11 events and has a three-seed in one of the others.

Brenna Morgan is the top seed in the 50 and 100 freestyles, looking to advance to the state finals in the two events for the third year in a row. Morgan owns the school record as well as the sectional records (24.07 and 52.33) in both.

Morgan will be part of the medley and 200 free relays which have a noticeable advantage in seed times coming in, and the Tiger 400 free relay is also starting in lane four as the top seed heading to prelims.

Delaney Wihebrink brings in the top time in both the individual medley as well as backstroke in her freshman campaign. Lauren Kuhl and Laurel Moeller both have good shots to contend as top seeds with Kuhl the one in the 500 free and Moeller in the 200. Kuhl is a three-seed in the 200 free.

Olivia Herman is a three-seed in both the 50 and 100 frees and Bridgette Yoder is a three-seed in the breaststroke to wrap up Warsaw’s top heat sheet names.

“It’s very exciting to see so many top seeds heading into the sectional,” stated Warsaw head coach Tony DeBrota. “I am worried a little with our second-tier girls, because we would like to get that sectional trophy back and there will be very good teams from Rochester and Culver Academy there. But looking at our heats from last year, we barely had anyone in the top five of a lot of the races, now we have several kids there. We are really pushing to get three girls into the finals in each event.”

Tippecanoe Valley’s Kate Gunter comes in as the three-seed in the butterfly, the top time posted for the Vikings heading in. Gunter could also push for a final swim in the 50 free.

Culver Academy and Warsaw have gone back and forth in winning the team title the past five years, CGA winning the title last season, Warsaw winning two years ago.